Re: Chevy Volt question


"Retired VIP" <jackj.extradots.180@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Fri, 26 Sep 2008 22:08:27 -0500, "Ray O"
<rokigawaATtristarassociatesDOTcom> wrote:


"Retired VIP" <jackj.extradots.180@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:22:08 -0500, "Ray O"
<rokigawaATtristarassociatesDOTcom> wrote:


"Retired VIP" <jackj.extradots.180@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:41:46 -0700, "Uncle_vito"
<uncle_vito2002@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

You wrote "If GM wants to build a car that is optimized for short
trips
on
electric power, why not build an electric-only car?"

The battery technology is just not at that point yet. Without the
engine
you risk being stuck with a run down battery.

I think I read that Honda was postponing making their all electric car
for
a
few years to develop a better battery. You know, if a car company
comes
out
with an electric car, and it leaves its owners stranded, that would be
terrible press. GM knows what it is doing with the Volt by providing
an
engine in the car so that it can still operate with a run down
battery.
Give companies a few years to develop a better battery and you may see
all
electric vehicles.

Vito

Most snipped

Yes, you would run the risk of being stuck with a run down battery and
being stranded. But you run the risk of running out of gasoline also.
You will always have to deal with a limit on the vehicle's range
regardless of what motive power you use, so that argument is invalid.
You would be right in saying that very few people would spend money to
buy a car that will only have a 40 mile range and putting an ICE in it
would increase sales.

You may also be right about batteries not being ready yet for
all-electric cars however Chrysler and Tesla seem to think that they
can build an electric-only car with a 200 mile range. So why is GM
building a car that can't recharge it's batteries? This car, if what
Ray says is correct, isn't a hybrid...it's a car with 2 types of
motive power.

I also question the advisability of adding hundreds of thousands of
cars that will get a major part of their power from the power grid at
a time when the grid is stretched to it's limit. It seems like the
manufacturers aren't examining their product's effect on the energy
systems.

Jack

Fortunately, most electric vehicle owners would probably recharge their
vehicles at night, when demand is lower.

A major disadvantage of vehicles that run solely on electric power
without
some means of on-board recharging is the lack of charging facilities
when
away from home. Even if gas stations started adding metered recharging
positions, it would take considerably longer to recharge a car's battery
than it takes to fill a tank with gas or diesel. People probably don't
want
to wait hours for their vehicle to recharge when on a trip.

An alternative scheme would be some means to swap out and exchange the
battery pack like is done with industrial electric forklifts or with gas
barbecue tanks, but the myriad different capacities and configurations
of
automotive battery packs would make that expensive and impractical, plus
the
battery packs in consumer vehicles are generally inaccessible without
raising the vehicle on a lift or disassembling some of the interior.

You made some good points Ray. Everything you say is true but it
still doesn't answer the question of why GM is going to build a car
that runs on either batteries or an ICE that can't use the ICE to
recharge the batteries.

As for charging at night..Add 1,000,000 battery chargers, each drawing
about 20 amps at 240 volts to the grid and see what happens to demand
at night.

But I stand by my original statement that GM seems to be designing
this car to fail.

Jack

I'm not defending the Volt's designers' decision to not provide a means
for
the ICE to recharge the batteries, if that is actually how it is designed.
It almost seems like they made that decision so that the car wouldn't be
just another hybrid trying to catch up with Toyota.

We'll have to see how the electric utility infrastructure improves to
handle
future demand for energy.

There was an article in the business section of this morning's paper
that said Chevy is trying to get the Volt certified by the US
Environmental Protection Agency as the first 100 mpg car. The article
also said that the car COULD recharge the battery using the on-board
1.4L engine or by plugging it in to the commercial power. This
article is from Bloomberg News Service.

So it appears that either the article Ray quoted or the one from
Bloomberg has erroneous information. Somebody from GM is putting out
bad information or the reporters aren't paying attention to what
they're writing.

It would be interesting to find out what criteria the EPA is using to
get to 100 mpg. However the EPA isn't talking and won't release any
information about testing methods or criteria.

Jack

I got my original information from Automotive news, one of the best sources
of industry information because the writers are automotive experts, not just
enthusiasts or financial writers. According to GM-volt.com (I don't know if
this is an official GM site or not), after the battery has been depleted
from its useful range, the ICE/generator could charge the battery if there
is surplus output, like during long downhill stretches. This design makes
more sense. Since the Volt is all about using as little gas as possible, my
guess is that under conditions like stop-and-go driving where the driver is
accelerating and at highway speeds, the ICE is sized to produce just enough
power for those conditions, but IF there is excess power, rather than be
wasted, it would go to recharge the batteries, even if there isn't enough
capacity to fully recharge the batteries.

The 100 mpg figure is not what the EPA came up with. The 100 mpg figure is
what GM is hoping to achieve if they can get the EPA to categorize the
vehicle as an electric vehicle and presumably not count when the ICE is
running. Otherwise, the Volt would be just another hybrid.

GM's approach to making the Volt marketable does seem unique. There are
probably not a lot of people willing or able to pay $40,000 for the car so
get all taxpayers, even those who are not buying one, to kick in a little so
that Volt buyers don't have to pay the entire premium cost but not give the
credit to cars with a different design philosophy; and get the EPA to change
how it calculates fuel economy to achieve a 100 mpg rating.

I don't particularly care for the political maneuvering, but I like the
concept if the car were affordably priced. People who use their cars
primarily to drive to a commuter station and get groceries; the little old
lady who only drives to church on Sunday; people who work close to home and
rarely take trips; mall and campus security services that patrol a
relatively small area at low speeds; soccer parents who don't venture far
from their neighborhood; and people with another conventional vehicle for
longer trips could benefit from a clean, economical-to-operate, short-range
vehicle that is larger than a golf cart.
--

Ray O
(correct punctuation to reply)


.

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